Testimonials

[Victoria Victrix]

(Bump.  Break my heart.)

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

Anyone who is not moved by the stories our heroes (and villains) can tell here. What I like most is that they are stories of triumph of the human spirit. Not all the heroes in the world are in bright colored suits in a virtual world, some of them sit at the keyboards.

[Viking]

First Post but here it goes

CoH saved my life a couple of time.

The first time was in 2005. I had quit my job to become self employed. My friend at the time was running his own company and need some help. Well 6 months goes by making good money. Come in one day to find out he had hired his bother in law. I did not think much of it. I was happy becasue that meant he was expanding his business. Then one day he just tells me I was no longer need and was not right for the job. Well I pretty much sat around for 6 months unable to find a job. I had not told anyone but I was in a deep depression. Money was almost gone that I had saved, did not know how I was going to make it.

During the enitre time I was unemployed I still played City Of Heroes. It kept the worse thoughts away. Starting teaming more and that made all the difference. People were friendly and helpful. Hell they made me laugh which is something I really had not done for 6 months.

The second time was in 2007. My best friend and me are advid gamers every saturday was (still is) game day. Normally we are playing pen and paper roleplaying games. He was not into mmorpgs. Then out of the blue he dies. This sent me once again into a deep depression. I almost stop playing all games after that. City of Heroes once again brought me back to gaming in general.

The reason City of Heroes bought me back was the community. The game helped me laugh again get out of my depression and move one. I still miss my friend but I know he would have wanted me to continue to play.

So once again thank you City of Heores, you saved my life more then once.

Viking

[RavenLenore13]

     As the girlfriend of a gamer-geek, I found that the best way to keep my boyfriend's attention was to join him online.  I am video game handicapped, & almost every alt he made to team with me had to have teleport in order to get me unstuck from behind that potted plant, or up those blasted stairs in Steel Canyon...
I realised a long time ago. I SUCK at games. Except, I found that I could actually play CoH.
     I found a niche for myself. I am a squishie specialist!
I can Hold, Heal, Bubble & Faceplant with the best of them!
WOOT!
I HAVE A TALENT!
& WE HAVE A GAME WE CAN PLAY TOGETHER!!!

     I have had 2 children since, a 3 yr old boy & a  1 yr old girl.
My laptop died a horrible death & I've been busy with the babies.
Finally I am able to log in for a few hours a week.
Interestingly enough, my son saw his father playing 3 weeks ago & now asks: "Can I watch City of Heroes, Daddy?"
My husband finally was able to get another laptop to run the game so we can team again.
Then the bomb was dropped on us about a week later about the close-down.
I will miss CoH if it is closed, but this isn't about me wanting CoH to continue for me & my family.

My real reason for wanting CoH to continue?
    Many years go, my husband & I  joined supergroups, but most of them would fade out in time.
Then we found the RP Congress on Pinnacle.
If it weren't for them, we might have stopped playing a long time before.
This group isn't just about playing, getting loot or XP, or being the biggest SG with a fancy base.
They are about role playing in team as if they were their characters.
We would meet once a week at the Pinnacle Pocket D & chat at the bar.
A bunch of friends, Heroes & Villains alike, in character, just chatting away.
     Many of them took it to another level & wrote not just detailed backgrounds, but full stories about their alts. Some of these have been published & podcasted. (The Secret World Chronicles came from the RP Congress,)
http://secretworldchronicle.com/

I have never been a great writer, there are many in the RPC who are VERY talented.
They have put much love, effort & plot into their alts.
     -It is for them that I pray that the game continues on.
     -Closing down COH would be like killing their muse.


& I am sure that the RPC is not the only place in COH to find players who find creative inspiration through the game. There are many here who live vicariously through their alts.
As I've said before. CoH is cheaper than therapy!
     A sense of pride, success, & the chance to look GOOD in spandex!

[Mindscythe]

I was persuaded to make my post in this thread its own thread, so I have done so, and it can be found at http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5130.0.html.

[Knightslayer]

Is it possible you posted the same pic twice? Or are my eyes playing tricks on me? O.o
(Also, that's awesome! I wish I had a teacher like that when I was in school, or taking computer science classes!)

[Vulpy]

[Reposted, by request, from http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=297233]

Thank you for taking the time! Feel free to send other parties this way, as well!

[Mindscythe]

Is it possible you posted the same pic twice? Or are my eyes playing tricks on me? O.o
(Also, that's awesome! I wish I had a teacher like that when I was in school, or taking computer science classes!)

Whoops... you're absolutely right! Copy/paste error, sorry. I've fixed it now. :)

[Defcon Kid]

I started playing CoH in June 2005...

There were little games magazine in Spain at that time, although there are more now, specially for console games... the one I'm talking about was (still exists) named "Micromania". I was coming back home from a job interview when I saw it in a newstand... it offered a 15 free-day trial so readers could try the game.

What to do, what to do? I wasn't keen on MMORPGs, I used to play NBA and Soccer games, but I've always loved super heroes, got hundreds of comic books at home, so I thought it might be interesting.

Interesting? It was MORE than that... watching characters actually saving people, running, flying, it was a dream for me! But... the 15 free-day trial finished... so I ran to the closest newstand and purchased another magazine! 15 free-day more to play with!

When the 2nd period of time finished, I had to make a choice... keep playing, which meant to subscribe whatever plan available, or uninstall the game and forget the whole thing... and since then I've been playing mainly in Defiant, but also in Union, and Virtue too since the servers list got merged.

I used to be a lonely person, attached to my family and having no friends... since I started playing CoH...

- I've met dozens of players from all around the world through the internet, in-game or via skype;
- I've learned there's much more people playing this lovely game, most of them are nice and kind, and funny;
- I'm no longer alone when I log in;
- even I've made some good friendships "real life" from people who also plays CoH and live near me, sometimes even only a few streets away, that I hadn't met if it wasn't because of CoH. Now we even go to the cinema, play board and role games, it's so great having a nice bunch of good friends!

What can I say? CoH REALLY changed my life. Let it be.

[Aurethious]

First of all, I want to thank everyone has come together for this effort. I have been reading many of the posts here and it's been great to see this community come together yet again, especially in the face of, well, what we're facing.

Just this week, I launched a website/gaming community project I've been working on. It's not much, as my web design skills are quite limited, but part of the site is a new blog that I'm writing. My post today was about CoH, my reflections on the game, and what you folks here are doing to try and keep it alive. I don't know if this is exactly a testimonial, but I figured I would share it here anyway.

Saving the City One More Time

For over eight years (since May of 2004), I have been a player of City Heroes. I have been a subscriber to the game for that entire team, even when the game went free-to-play a year ago. I have seen friends in the game come and go, inevitably moving on the next MMO venture. Each time, I've said that I'll be in Paragon City until they shut the servers down. Never did I expect that to come so soon.

As you may or may not know by know, as of November 30th, City of Heroes will be no more. NCSoft has decided that the game is no longer profitable enough to keep going and will pull the plug. Paragon Studios, the game's development team, has been pretty much vaporized. A community has been left largely stunned, but also resolute. To those of us who have played the game, this decision came completely out of nowhere. Days before the announcement, new content was made available to purchase for the game. A trailer for the next major update was about to be released. And just like that, City of Heroes went from being a thriving, dynamic game to being on the countdown to oblivion. It would be easy enough to finish the story there, but this story has not ended yet.

The community of City of Heroes has been regarded as one of the best among all MMOs. It's hard to explain to someone who has either never played an MMO or spent a minute in Paragon City. I mentioned earlier that I have had friends come and go in City of Heroes. Every time one group moved on, it was not long before I would find another group to play with, and made new friends. There always felt to be an atmosphere of inclusion amongst the players of City of Heroes. You always felt like you were among friends, playing the game you enjoyed, because you all just wanted to enjoy the experience.

City of Heroes was the first MMO that I ever tried. I grew up a console gamer. I didn't think I could ever play a game without a controller. And I certainly was never going to pay a monthly fee to play a game. The idea of such a thing was preposterous to me. City of Heroes changed all of that. I tried the game one day at my cousins' house and I was immediately hooked. Just the whole concept of creating your own superhero and running around the city fighting crime was fantastic. I immediately decided that I needed to get this game for myself. I even had a friend of mine's brother build me a new computer so that I could play the game. Eight years later, while the game has changed some (I still look back and miss the days of running around in teams through Perez Park.) and very much for the better, that initial feel of the game is still there.

I have tried other MMOs. As friends left City of Heroes, they would tell me about this game that I had to try. So, I would give it a shot. I tried EverQuest 2. I tried World of Warcraft. I tried DC Universe Online (which I actually do enjoy). But none of them were City of Heroes. None of them had the feel of City of Heroes. None of them could replace City of Heroes. And that still holds true to this day.

Getting back to the community, that is a major part of the reason that this game still holds me after eight years. I've seen this game bring people together. I know of one person personally who met her eventual husband through City of Heroes. Countless others can share similar stories. The friends I have made through this game are as real as anyone I have met through any other walk of life. Some of them have seen me through some of the best times of my life as well as some of the worst. Through it all, they have always proved to be more than just a character on a screen. The friendships that I have developed through City of Heroes will always be treasured, regardless of what happens to the game itself.

Even in the face of losing the thing has brought them all together, the City of Heroes community has banded together in an attempt to keep the game alive. Largely spear-headed by a group of players known as the Titan Network, a campaign to save the game has been launched. Through their forums, they are focusing efforts of the community to do what they can to convince NCSoft not to turn the lights off in Paragon City, as well as working on contingency plans in case that is unsuccessful. A petition has been created to try and save City of Heroes. As of this writing, it has received more than 17,000 signatures. No matter what the outcome is for City of Heroes, this community will know that it did everything it could to keep the game it loves going.

I urge anyone who is a City of Heroes player to check out the Titan forums and see what they have going on there. Although I am saddened by the thought of a great game that I enjoy going away, I have been very inspired by the efforts of the community through Titan. Once I have the ION GameCast up and going within the next day or so, I plan on reaching out to the folks at Titan to see if any of them would like to come on and talk about what's going on and what the players can do to help. For a superhero-themed game, the slogan the Titan has adopted for this mission is quite fitting: "We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years.  It's time to do it one more time." Time will tell whether or not this mission will be complete.


-Al Basler
ION Game Corner

[Teege]

First off I wish I had a professor like Mindscythe. Moving on.

As somebody who first played in the summer of 2004 I can say no other MMO has captivated me like City of Heroes has. Even with a few breaks to deal with real life circumstances, I always returned to this game and continued to pay a subscription even when it went free because I knew I was supporting a great game. Sure it didn't have the most flashiest of gaming engines, but it offered countless power combinations and unlimited costume combinations, the ability to create your own missions, and so on. But beyond was the most engrossing factor: the community. OUR community. Both players and developers.

While I don't like to disclose my social anxiety or other disorders, I think it's important to understand myself and others (many of whom suffer from terminal illnesses) are able to use the game to cope or escape when it is needed most. For those with terminal illnesses, the game provided them with a friendly support network and a city in which they too can fly the skies and save the world. When my depression hit a bad low, it was my City of Heroes friends that were there to pick me up and oddly enough, seemed to show more support than some friends outside the game. Often leaving the house causes physical and emotional symptoms, however I could always remind myself that Soon™ it'd be over and I could find myself home with people that cared and people that could keep my mind off the negative things.

As I always say, we're not here to harm or bash NCSoft, but rather to rally and save our community. We're heroes and this is what we do. I hope that NCSoft will realize that this is more than just a game and will work on keeping it alive somehow, because we're not going anywhere. What people have invested in this game is far more valuable than any amount of stock.

[Terwyn]

The average person speaks approximately 16000 to 20 000 words in a day, possibly more, depending on the study you examine. I am lucky to manage even a quarter of that. To be as direct as possible, every word I speak has been translated on two, maybe three times before it even passes through my lips, since unlike the vast majority of the human race, I do not think linguistically (that is, in words). I have described how I think in several different ways, saying that I think in puzzles, that I think mathematically, especially geometrically, but it really boils down to I think in terms of almost pure logic.

Thinking visually is only the first tier of translation, since it allows me to grab all the various components and spread them out, catching all the various links between them. This means that I can pretty much look at a machine and read roughly how it works with a glance, but it also means that the more complex biological machines known as people prove extremely difficult to completely account for in regards to behaviour.

The next layer of translation is descriptive, allowing me to put things into words, so that I may communicate my concepts and ideas to those around me. When it comes to actual spoken word, however, an additional layer of translation is required, otherwise it ends up frequently being lost. Either because the initial terminology chosen for the description is too complex, and thus needs to be translated in a less precise fashion, or because it is lost to the signal noise commonly known as a speech disorder. Truth be told, there is nothing actually disordered about my speech. If anything, it is far too ordered.

Having spent the majority of my life wondering why I had such difficulty interacting with members of the human species, I found an answer in the kitchen of a private club I started working at after my first (disastrous) year at college. It was there that a co-worker asked me a question that provided a missing piece from the puzzle I'd been trying to solve. She'd asked me if I was autistic, since her son was nearly non-verbal, and had a lot of behavioural traits that seemed quite in common with myself. Now, I'd known that I had a non-verbal learning disability since I was very young, but this was entirely new.

You see, the paperwork which identified the particulars vanished, likely in part due to the fact that it was so similar to that of my near-perfect partial genetic duplicate, it was discarded as a copy. My family has never been able to prove that, however, and despite my mother's efforts to find out what had happened and enable me to receive the assistance I needed, I ended up having to navigate the hazardous shoals of primary education up to high school almost entirely on my own. I may have had my twin brother's assistance, but unfortunately, even with his almost divine hand at gleaning the particulars of what I needed, I finished high school with very little of a self-concept. I never started regularly referring to myself as an independent being until we started studying at separate schools in the fall of 2003. It didn't matter that they were in adjacent towns, what mattered is that I finally had full authority to consciously handle my own affairs.

I failed. Badly. Landing in academic probation, and having very little in terms of social interaction with classmates, I returned home for the Christmas break, where I was given some well placed advice that allowed me to return to school and remove myself from academic probation. That summer, a friend of mine had picked up City of Heroes, and allowed me to fiddle with it on his account. I recognized the game as having potential, and promised myself to pick up a copy as soon as possible.

I acquired a copy in November 2005, but was unable to activate it due to the lack of a sufficiently competent computer until October 2006. My brothers decided they'd chip in for the monthly fees in exchange for having a server to themselves through my account (as it was my eldest sibling's computer we were using, I did not decline). I was promptly enthralled by the vibrant life on Pinnacle, meeting many colourful individuals, including X-Funk (whom had some extremely encouraging words whenever I needed them), and found myself drawn increasingly deeper into the community, eventually finding a renewed faith in my own voice. It should be no surprise that The King's Speech  is a film of tremendous personal importance.

As a result of the increased confidence in my own voice, I was able to go from a 2.72 GPA in my first run at college to a 3.42 in my second, which was a Business Administration Co-op program with a focus in Marketing. I had placements across multiple industries, from marketing services, to World Vision, and the high-tech world of Research In Motion. Not only that, I found an anchor in the game that helped me codify many ideas into potential story seeds which I am still continuing to grow.

City of Heroes is far more than just a game for me, as it has frequently been my *only* social outlet. I have never been a greatly social individual, preferring the reliability and order of books to the inherent chaos of human civilization, but I had a friend point out to me a decade or so ago that for me to eschew chaos would be to deny the greater portion of my own being. She was right. In as much as my twin brother has been an interpreter for me when it comes to interacting with the world, she's been my guide and my teacher. I would not have gone to the risk of introducing myself to the Pinnacle community without her well-time advice.

Considering that in the time since I joined City of Heroes, I've been able to find my own words with deeper certainty and vastly greater strength and passion, to the point where I am nearly ready to seek the publication of my first book, I have to say that there are no other words that I can put forth than merely "Thank you."

[darkskye]

For what it's worth, Terwyn, I think you expressed yourself *beautifully*.

[Terwyn]

It's the written word. If I had to do this verbally, you'd not get me to enter the building. ^_^

[SithRose]

It's the written word. If I had to do this verbally, you'd not get me to enter the building. ^_^

And I guessed right on the first paragraph....

MMOs are a GOOD way for low-verbal/non-verbal autistic people to learn social interaction. *I* am better at putting thoughts into written form than I am at speaking, and I'm on the Asperger's end of the spectrum. :)

[Terwyn]

And I guessed right on the first paragraph....

MMOs are a GOOD way for low-verbal/non-verbal autistic people to learn social interaction. *I* am better at putting thoughts into written form than I am at speaking, and I'm on the Asperger's end of the spectrum. :)

As I said with my paper work going missing, I don't know where on the spectrum I fall, but it's been confirmed that I'm there somewhere. I was never explicitly low-verbal, in fact I proved to have a very advanced grasp of language - reading at a college level by grade 6, for example. It's just that somewhere along the line, I started sliding backwards.

I used to be such that I never knew when to *not* talk, now, I never know when I *should* talk. Basically, I have two modes - talking too much, or not talking enough. I'm still learning the fine balance. :P

[Tannim222]

I've been playing CoH since June of 2004. There are many reasons why I love this game and could go into great detail about the many systems that make this game so great to play. However, this isn't so much about me and my gameplay experience as it is about my son. JD was born in 2006, and it was a year and a half later that we found out he was deaf. We had known something was wrong, but the audiologist we had scene when he was an infant assured us "he was fine". The doctor we saw at his first year check up told us they don't worry until boys are about three years of age if they're not speaking yet.

We saw a speech therapist independantly of our insurance who broke the news to us. Since then, we've done everything we can to help JD navigate his near-silent world. He is considered hard-of-hearing in one ear in a range just below normal speech, and profoundly deaf in the other. He obtained hearing aids for him, had him in speech therapy since he was a year and a half. Later we enrolled him into our school districts low incidence program for the hearing imparied. It was there that his teacher recommended a cochlear implant for his bad ear as his hearing aid wasn't able to help him capture speech in that ear.

The pursuit of that implant through our insurance was a year long nightmare. Once we obtained it and he began to adapt, the changes were immediately apparent. JD had been slowly picking up words, and with his implant, he began to speak even more. Any parent will attest to the fact that every word spoken from their growing baby is precious. This feeling is magnified for parents of deaf children learning to speak. By the age of four JD had an over-all spoken language of a one year old. He knew sign language which we taught him since he was six months old, and due to having that as a base, the language center of this brain was very active. He knew the entire alphabet, how to count to fifty, colors, shapes, animals and so on. Yet, after almost a year and a half in his education program, he wasn't progressing as quickly as he should.

Fortunate for us, we live near a private school that specializes in working with deaf and hard of hearing children. We had him evaluated and they accepted him. JD's understanding of language and his verbal communication took a huge jump forward. It wasn't long until he saw me playing CoH and he came over and he pointed at the monitor and asked me, "Daddy, what's dat?"

Now understand he has seen me play many video games, and outside of the cartoony nintendo variety of a certain mustached plumber, he's never shown much interest in them. With CoH though, he would always sit on my lap and watch me play. He particular loved characters that could fly, or use superspeed, and would often imitate combat animations with a high degree of accuracy.

"Daddy, what's dat?" he asked pointing at the loading page. I replied with the name of the game. "Ci-ty ub Hewoes," he repeated to the best of his ability. It's how he's learned to speak, by repeating what's been said. New words spoken by JD are like precious jems. One of the techniques we use to help JD speak is to use things he's interested in to teach him language. So, in the year since he's been speaking more, JD has sat with me at the computer learning words and concepts. He's created his own character and has even learned to create his own characters when drawing instead of simply copying the popular heroes shown in cartoons.

Beyond that, Cityof is a place where I know my almost six year old is safe at the PC, where the community respects the description of "child at keyboard with parent in attendance". People that have interacted with his character have always been respectful, polite, and even understanding when he didn't quite perform as his AT should have. City of Heroes is more than a game to me, it's a gateway into my son's growing world of sound where he continues to learn how to speak and learn concepts such as heroism, communication and coordination with others.

[Jerlstrom]

I doubt I can make you cry, but I will write anyway.

I can't remember how long I've been playing; it's roughly since just before Going Rogue.

I can't claim that I met the love of my life on City of Heroes, or even good friends.  I have never had an easy time making friends throughout my life.

I don't have stories about my children to tell, for I have no children.

What I can tell you is that out of dozens of online games, City of Heroes is the only one where I have not felt my age.  (I turn 50 in November.)  City of Heroes is the only online game where I have not had to tell anyone that really, I am old enough to be his mother.  I have never felt a need to spank someone, or slap someone.  For that alone, I would be immensely grateful.

What I can tell you is that there are few games these days that remember that the Macintosh operating system exists.  I used to use Crossover Games to play Windows-based games.  The fine folks at Crossover try hard, but that extra layer of software was annoying at best.  City of Heroes can be played on a Macintosh, which makes me more comfortable.

I am totally and permanently disabled, with multiple ailments.  City of Heroes gives me a reason to fight the neurological degeneration in my fingers and type.  I rarely leave my home; City of Heroes is a large part of my day.  When I can't open bottles, I can still take to the skies and fry brains.

I don't have reasons to live, or even reasons to postpone dying.  City of Heroes gives me a reason to get out of bed.  That's pretty darn good for anything, especially a game.

If City of Heroes does fly into the sunset, I will miss it horribly.

[Zolgar]

So, this post isn't about me (though I play a part in it), but it's another story of the awesomeness of our community that deserves to be told.

A good friend of mine, practically a brother to me though I've only met him face to face once, was in a pretty bad living situation: unemployed, and being shuffled from place to place, never knowing where he'd be staying next and how long he'd be there. for the most part, his biological family treated him like some unwanted knicknack to be shuffled about wherever was least inconvenient.

He had an offer though, to move up to Washington state and stay with part of his 'other' family- his CoH family. This family had space for him to sleep and a job lined up.. there was only one problem: he lived in.. well, some state that was more than a couple hours from Washington (one of the Dakotas, I think). Talking to the woman he would be staying with, she was planning to drive down and pick him up.. which with her car, finances and health was not likely to happen soon or to go well. So I told her I would see what I could do.

I did some research and ran some numbers, and then got a Chip-In running to raise the money for a plane ticket for my friend. I figured we might be able to get a few people to throw enough in to make the plane ticket a reasonable cost, but it'd take a while.. Boy was I wrong! Due to the sheer awesomeness of the City of Heroes community, in a matter of hours we raised enough money to not only book him a plane ticket.. but to give him about $150 in pocket money to cover additional travel expenses and help him get settled in to Washington.

Even though the job he was to get in Washington fell through, the family he was staying with continued to support him- even when they couldn't really afford it, doing more to help him get back on his feet than even his own mother, until a family emergency pulled him back away from Washington.

For me, that was when I knew that... City of Heroes is more than just an MMO, it's not just a community either... it is a (virtual) city of (real) heroes.

-Now, to hope the guy I'm talking about doesn't see this, 'cause he might kill me. >.>

[Zedrik]

It's the written word. If I had to do this verbally, you'd not get me to enter the building. ^_^

I have a very similar problem, with the textual versus verbal thing. Though you say you think in pure logic, I have a different problem. I think in abstract ideas. Usually thousands of them at once. I don't have a train of though, I have many caravans of thought, all traveling on their own and/or interweaving through each other. My closest friends on the internet have noticed my tendency to bring up a topic seemingly out of nowhere, only to have the topic we were discussing to be continued possibly hours later. From what I understand, it takes a lot to get used to talking to me. I've tried to explain how I have to put things into words, and I used the translation explanation you did. I have to translate things, and I'm often frustrated because I often have difficulty finding words to express what I want. Language is so limiting.

In the real world, I'm very quiet, rarely speaking unless spoken to, and very often wanting to speak, but not knowing if I should. And when I finally decide that, yes, I do have something I want to say, the subject has moved on and I feel like the opportunity to speak up has passed and thus I remain quiet. (This often happens online, too, but the time limit is broader in many online fora of expression.)

Unfortunately, I am not diagnosed with anything, as my inability to deal with people is magnified a thousandfold when I am face to face with them. If given the choice, I almost always chicken out of attempts to get help. In the real world I feel like a loser because of this. While a lot of this does transfer over into my online presences, I tend to feel a lot more free in games. CoH is the only one I have stuck with for any length of time. According to my account information, I've been playing since early June of 2004. There's been times the game couldn't be paid for, though most of the time I had an active sub, even during times when I logged in rarely.

Although I hope CoH can be saved, I dread the day I have to tell my nephew that CoH is gone and that he can't play his guys. He's only three, so he'll probably move on quickly. But I tend to put in roots, and I've got many in CoH and it will be hard for me to say goodbye to such a great game. Also, I think I'll stop rambling now.  :-X

- Zedrik/@Moonblood